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‘Europe Is Our Home’

While Brexiteers have lately been drenched by a cold shower of reality, “Irexiteers” frustratingly cling to the same toxic fantasy that has driven the UK to its greatest foreign policy disaster in decades.

Europe is our home. We have benefited and grown greatly as a nation from our EU membership, and remain members because it is overwhelmingly in our interests.

The Irish people have repeatedly recognised at the ballot box that, whether we are in the EU or not, many decisions which are important to our country are decided in Brussels.

As such, we’re far better off as equal members, with our vote, our veto, and our seat at the table of the world’s most important trade bloc – all of which the UK has gambled away.

Mr Kinsella disappointingly blames the EU for issues not of its making, such as the existence of the Irish Border, the US-led bombings of Syria and Libya, and even the consequences of Brexit.

While claiming that Brexit renders Ireland “marginalised, peripheral and dependant”, Mr Kinsella also bafflingly seems to believe that an Irexit would reverse this.

How does losing our vote and our rights in Europe strengthen us? How does cutting ourselves off from the single market we helped to build make us more prosperous or secure?

Does Mr Kinsella not recognise that leaving the EU actually results in a very real loss of control, as the UK is currently finding out?

Finally, Mr Kinsella asks “who will uphold and advocate Ireland’s national interests?” The answer is simple. Ireland will. To do so, we need an equal seat at the table, and a vote to cast.

Ireland has been exceptionally pro-Europe and pro-EU since before we joined the EEC. Even when they joined, UK had a vocal anti-EU element. and this has been allowed to grow larger/more vocal for internal political reasons, resulting in Brexit.
I’m all for debating Irexit, but let’s do it on the basis of fact, not sentiment.

We said no to Lisbon. We were told we gave the wrong answer. The fear was ramped up and we were told to vote again. Any changes were cosmetic as the political establishment ignored the will of the people.

Rubbish. We voted no, our reasons were canvessed and the treaty was changed. Obviously to people who are against everything the EU stands for, such as yourself and Bodger, it is quite easy to ignore this as go for the childish idea that we were given the exact same thing to vote on. Hardly shocking for the two tinfoil hat lads though.

With regards the fish, the FF government gave up the waters and shafted the fishermen to get an amazing deal for the farmers. They could have tried for a decent deal for both but not too many votes on the boats.

Please. Our sovereignty was ignored during the banking crisis. Covney and the blueshirts are slowly dragging us in to the EU army and our constitutional protection for the unborn is being undermined by a billionaire Hungarian ex-nazi

I always found visiting Ireland was appreciating Irish culture and Irish people. The same visiting France.etc
We have lost a lot of our culture, small village shops, small farms , its sad to see the decline . Its nonsense to suggest all about the EEC is top drawer…..Aren’t we committed to taking 8, OO0 refugees , ? Nowhere to house the misfortunes, we can’t house our own .

Free trade means large multinationals can move in on markets that are being served by small, independent traders and undercut them. This also cuts down on employment options and puts downward pressure on wages which means people have even less money to spend in small independent shops. Come on, man. You think houses were cheap in the 70s because women didn’t work. Surely you can get your head around this.

Before the EU, small traders were being undercut by Quinnsworth, Dunnes Stores, Musgraves etc – the EU didn’t cause this to happen.

“ You think houses were cheap in the 70s because women didn’t work.”

– this is one of the main reasons that houses were much cheaper then than now. Your inability to comprehend this is perhaps understandable, but you probably shouldn’t wave it around like a turd for everyone to see…

You might have a point Moyest, but our own planning laws allowing one off houses all over the place mean that people are less likely to frequent the village shop, but rather to do a ‘big shop’ in a larger town once a week. They’re less likely to stroll down town at half nine for three pints. The EU’s contributed; we haven’t helped either though. We don’t like building up, which means that lots of places* never reach a critical mass that MORE people want to move there.

I like that I can’t be forced to resign from my job if I get married and that I get the same rate of pay as a married man with the same length of service and experience. We may have joined in the 70’s but the EEC dragged Ireland from a 1950’s backwater to a modern country.

I’d get rid of the European parliament in the morning, but I’d keep the EEC.

only bigoted racists are against the EU, the EU is the best thing to happen to us our voice is heard and acknowledged in europe we have an important role in the decisions being made in Brussels and our concerns are listened to. We need to ignore the voices saying the EU is a monolith of corruption and bureaucracy and that the illusion of democracy is presented via MEP’s who have to vote in Blocs and that the EU is ruled by unelected Commissioners. Brexit was racist an ignorant majority stole democracy away from the people we CANNOT allow that to happen here, the EU has our best interests at heart we are all equal partners in Europe, Germany and France listen closely to the Irish people and their needs reform is coming soon we just need to be patient.

Never mind the leaving the EU, we should be more ambitious. In 1961 Yuri Gagarin traveled into space and escaped the bonds of gravity. Why should Ireland not follow suit? Gravity is no friend of ours, it keeps us chained to hard, unyielding earth with other nations who do not share our interests. We would do well to remove ourselves from the downward tyranny of earth’s gravitational field and reposition ourselves in a market where the physics allows for a more omnidirectional fluidity.

If we leave what do we think we’re going to get from aligning to Britain?
Don’t get me wrong I’m not anti-British but we’re far better off with a decent say (voting, veto, seat at the table) in Europe rather than a partnership with Britain.
Would we ‘join’ the ‘union’ again or try go it alone?
At least Britain have the scale to survive on their own if they have to.

On the plus side: peace in our time, access to the single market, free movement, a mature and moral approach to social justice such as the refugee crisis.
The cons: it’s a neoliberal takeover by evil sausage munchers and shadowy George Soros; we are actually a slave vassal state who would be rich as Croesus now had we stuck with 1950s social attitudes and protectionism, flogging mouldy beef and butter.

If the EU is a neoliberal nightmare, I’d love to see the egalitarian Scandi-state we’d have ended up being by looking to Boston rather than Berlin.